LLVM Replaces libstdc++ Library With libc++

The LLVM compiler infrastructure project has Clang as a compiler front-end to compile C, Objective-C, and C++ programs as an alternative to GCC. However, the Low-Level Virtual Machine is now doing more and replacing bigger portions of the GCC tool-chain with new components. The LLVM project has introduced libc++ as a replacement for the GNU libstdc++ standard library.

LLVM's C++ standard library is libc++ and it's targeting the C++0x standard. Also separating it from libstdc++ is that it's being licensed under a BSD-style license like LLVM itself. Some of the other LLVM libc++ features beyond conforming to C++0x is fast execution, minimal memory use, faster compile times, and ABI compatibility with GCC's libstdc++ for some low-level features.

The libc++ library is being supported by Apple and at the moment this library is only supported on Mac OS X i386/x86_64, but Linux support is likely not too far out. The project page for LLVM's new C++ standard library can be found at libcxx.llvm.org. There's some tests on the mailing list showing it being much faster than libstdc++: 5 seconds versus 22 seconds.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the web-site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience and being the largest web-site devoted to Linux hardware reviews, particularly for products relevant to Linux gamers and enthusiasts but also commonly reviewing servers/workstations and embedded Linux devices. Michael has written more than 10,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics hardware drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated testing software. He can be followed via Twitter and Google+ or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.